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Monday, April 18, 2016

At least twice a year my Nana would ask me to move her refrigerator so she could clean behind it. You would think there were dead animals back there, or at least stuff growing out of the coils based on her urgency. "Donna doll, please...would you mind?" Of course I never minded, but I knew before I moved it there would be nothing more than a few dust balls. I loved her dedication to cleanliness, but it made me wonder, 'Am I a slob for not caring what is behind mine?"
Funny thing is, when it comes to finding what's hiding behind my decisions, actions and thoughts, I run with a duster and vacuum hoping to find all the dirt, dust and cobwebs that are hiding under my psyche. Nana on the other hand, never even discussed her past. She never had a need or reason to go "back there." And she didn't seem to suffer because of it. Happy with very little, her entire life consisted of two daughters, 21 grand and great grandchildren, a tiny, one-room apartment filled with animal statues and plants, and Friday afternoon bingo. So simplistic about life that getting cards on the holidays and her birthday made her thankful for the entire year. She was a woman who could spend two hours at a discount store, come home with one statue of a bird, and then spend three days re-arranging her entire apartment just so that one little creature would fit in perfectly. Such joy in so little!
'Was my Nana happy?' I have often asked myself that question. My answer now, after years of learning from her simplistic way of life: The idea of happiness is like a mirage...whatever you want is what you will see, and what you see, you can imagine makes you happy. Is being a little obsessive about knowing what is behind something, albeit an appliance or a mindset, a good thing? Nana would say, "If it makes you happy Donna dear, do it!"

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

We complain an awful lot as a nation about healthcare costs and whether medicine should be socialized or not. Since I'm entrenched in the health/wellness/prevention industries as a coach, I have some opinion on how things got so bad. I thought I would do a little research to show why I don't complain; I get busy and get to work...

From 2000 to 2012, our nation paid out about $133 billion on its smoker's and their illnesses. (As an FYI, Canadians paid $2.8 billion. That shocked me!) All related preventable costs break down to this: For every $7 or $8 a smoker spends on his/her pack of cigarettes, we each pay about $35 for their health related costs, so essentially their habit is our problem. We rank highest in the world, by the way. Here are some other eyeopeners:

Type 2 Diabetes, another preventable disease, has skyrocketed...up 700 percent in the last 50 years. Having a cure (change the diet and start exercising) hasn't stopped us from racking up over $200 billion in healthcare, loss of productivity and disability costs. That is estimated at about $700 a year to each and every one of us.

If you don't think that is eye opening enough, check this out from www.statinusage.com about high cholesterol: By 2030, about 40% of our nation is expected to have some form of CVD. Direct medical costs expected to triple from $273 billion currently to $818. Indirect costs due to lost productivity should increase approximately 60%, rising from $172 billion to $276 billion. This combination comes to more than One Trillion Dollars! The website says that if we could cut those numbers down, it would be like giving every American household a $9,700 check every year.

This is only a sampling of a few preventable diseases, as I haven't even touched on drugs, alcohol, addiction, accidents, and so many of the diseases associated with what we put into our bodies. Did you know that the number one cause of cancer according to the American Cancer Society is no longer cigarettes? It is food.

So if we want to be fair about how things got so bad...if we really want to create change, we need to ask ourselves how much our own lifestyle practices are contributing to our ongoing complaints, our stress, not to mention our unhappy bodies. As far as offering healthcare for free...it might be cheaper to offer prevention and wellness for free, because if the old adage is right, a thousand in prevention will be worth a billion in cure.